I want your presence, not your presents :)

This week's affirmation for me is "I deserve to be here. I am authentic, my words are valid and I belong - ALWAYS." - made up by me because I needed it (man oh man oh man have I needed it!). This topic brings me back to a tweet I put out a couple of weeks ago too, a few weeks after I started to experience the seven levels of HELL I have just been through thanks to a different bunch of circumstances that won't ever be repeated - and a nightmarish Mercury Retrograde in my own sign of Pisces (it's particularly cruel when all signs point to you having an easy time, to success, and when you see others having that easy success but it isn't your turn yet. Nope you're not off the hook that easily). I was already giving myself the basis of what would get me through though - check it out:

Reason#30 you are awesome; you can whisper, talk, shout, write, sing, dance or act it out but you ALWAYS have a way to get your point across
— kaliannagrace (@kaliannagrace) March 8, 2014

Eventually everything that needed to happen did happen, just in the most awful and unnecessary way that I am still reeling and that I need to build myself back up again big time. A lot of staring at scenes like this helped:

Hands up if you've experienced that moment where you're trying your hardest to say something, to express, to let someone else know what you need them to hear only to be completely, totally and utterly misunderstood? Or, even worse, have your quiet voice drowned out, trampled or ignored. What you have to say might be hard, the other person might be hard, it doesn't matter. Oh you have? Great! I thought so.

The fact is that there are little squeaks and sounds, subtle energies working in all of us, and moving through us and when we don't pay attention, or when we deny them is exactly when we end up with ISSUES. Physical issues, emotional issues, accidents, throat chakra issues (if you go in for that sort of thing, but it applies to you whether you do or not). So we must learn some way or another to express ourselves - to let what's inside come out, preferably without hurting someone or something in the process.

My best suggestion so far in my time on this earth to enable the two way process of getting a point across, and what I like to call authentic communication, is to simply be PRESENT as much as possible. Gosh that is not an easy ask, but I am thankful any time I ever meet someone who is completely present, giving me their attention and acknowledging to me when they aren't understanding or weren't listening when I said something. It means being careful about WHEN and HOW you say something too - because if you know someone else is not present, not hearing what you are saying or thinking their own thoughts to themselves you can't expect them to take in what you have to say properly can you? I still encounter people talking over the top of each other almost every day and you just know that the conversation was basically a waste of time and valuable energy. It's like trying to pass the potatoes across a table with a live hippopotamus sitting on top of it. Amusing maybe but useful? unlikely...talking to someone or answering someone who has made their mind up already or pre-judged you or the situation can be equally impossible. Charlie Pickering and Steve Price arguing on The Project is a perfectly entertaining case in point on this. Charlie has recently announced that he's quitting the show he's been fantastic on for nearly six years. Surprising? hardly. Those two need a whole different form of communication to work out their differences, as do most politicians probably!

Think for a second about this. How many marriages could be saved if husbands and wives just shut up and listened to each other and really heard what was said, making their own voice inside quiet without running its own commentary of proceedings full of judgments that they made up themselves? That's what presence is. How many childhoods would be saved if people simply took the time to ACKNOWLEDGE what someone small is feeling before guiding them to how they 'should' feel about something?

To acknowledge, and to enable this being 'present' business, it's pretty damn important to pay attention too. Laws against texting and driving don't seem to stop people from trying to get around the fact that we just aren't designed to multi-task the way so many people wish we were. Schools are set up so that by default only certain types of learners really achieve close to their potential (there's a fantastic book on this subject called Brain Rules that should be required reading for any teacher, parent, communications employee or bus driver. Pretty much everyone really). One day it might be recognised that the way we do things is not conducive to people being present, and that being present is how we achieve our best, but a lot of people need a lot more therapy first in my experience.

There's a line from the Sister Act 2 movie which is just so apt here I have to bust it out - please take a minute (and 42sec) to relive this adorable moment, which kind of sums up what i'm on about:

I'm here to tell you that for a big part of the population it's virtually impossible to be present - and someone I've looked up to for a long time, Eckhart Tolle, might agree with me. How do I know? I experience it almost on the daily. Ever been in front of a distant and inattentive store clerk who didn't hear you say 'savings account' when you handed over the card to pay - being a GOOD customer trying to save them a question and some time? They will ask you, and maybe ask you again by the time they actually get to putting it through - and some even have the audacity to mumble about customers being slow or act like you don't pay enough attention to them - and instantly someone's got a problem that shouldn't even exist. Meanwhile i'm practicing my deep breathing trying not to lose my S#!T. Or the waiter who hears you say the words 'no meat' but decides to give you a pad thai with chicken in it anyway?

Ever had a job interview where you just KNOW that the questions you are being asked are actually not going to be that relevant to the selection process, or ensure the right candidate gets chosen at all? Oh yes, you know what i'm talking about. I know you do. You try and communicate, try to make a process go smoothly, the message just isn't getting through. Lights are certainly on and nobody is at home. To all of us who continue trying, may we make peace with the process and to those who don't try, may you start to think about how you can be more present to your everyday surroundings, the people around you, the moods people are in.

This has turned into a really long rant, but it felt good to get it out (see what I did there? lol) The good news is, people who do what I do are taught the value of presence, and can teach it to others too. You'll have to book a session with me to find out more though :)